


Inappropriate Workplace Conversations

by ShastaFirecracker



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Gossip, M/M, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 18:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17903048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShastaFirecracker/pseuds/ShastaFirecracker
Summary: Is what it says on the tin. During a slow week, the team resorts to gossiping about everyone's favorite can of worms to open: Jack. Hub fluff set vaguely early in series 2.





	Inappropriate Workplace Conversations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dervish_and_banges](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dervish_and_banges/gifts).



> It has been nearly ten years since I first fell in love with and then had my heart ripped out by Torchwood. A friend of mine just discovered it and has been going through the same process, and I've gone back into the annals of my own fandom nostalgia to be on the same page as her while we flip our collective shit over how much we love this unbelievably dumb and impossibly perfect show. So with no further ado, have some Hub fluff with nosy officemates and Janto.

“So what I want to know is, what's so bloody special about shagging Jack Harkness?” Owen spun in his chair, idly kicking the side of his desk on every round just for the loud, hollow metallic bang.

“I'm sure he'd be happy to give you an object lesson, Owen,” said Gwen, hidden behind her magazine, sounding vaguely bored.

“Like I want teaboy castrating me with the sugar tongs,” Owen scoffed. “Nah I mean, the way Jack goes on, and how his exes we've met go on, it's always like – ooh, he's so avante garde, he's impossible, he's so amazin', whatever. He's only bloody human. I've done his scans, he isn't hiding any bits drastically different from any bloke from this century, and I don't care that the species's had three thousand more years to innovate, I'm just saying there's only so many holes and so many things to stick in em.”

Gwen made a disgusted sound and flopped her magazine down. _“Owen.”_

“What?” Owen spun too fast and had to correct with a hand on his desk before he toppled over. “I can fucking well guarantee that any way a human body can get off has already been done, even by now, and not only that but it's already got a fetish scene. I _cannot_ believe that one individual is so unique in bed -”

“I reckon it's a roleplay thing,” Tosh piped up unexpectedly, eyes never leaving her workstation. She appeared to be programming some idle liquid physics, tweaking the tide of a virtual shoreline.

“Not you too,” groaned Gwen.

“Well, Owen's right that there are only so many mechanical variables,” Tosh said, typing. Anyone who didn't know her well might have missed the slight flush in her cheeks. “It must be psychological.”

“You know it's the -” Gwen waved her hand in a wishy-washy motion. “The pheromones, or whatever. He's just a walking aphrodisiac, that's all.”

“Then in his own time, he'd be nothing special,” Owen said. “But we've met people from his time and they still act like he makes the earth move by breathing. Or the colony planet.”

“You can't take Hart at his word, he wanted to shag a poodle.”

“Still -”

They were interrupted by the loud clank and slow grind of the door opening. It had been a slow day – a slow week, truth be told – and they'd gone farther afield than usual with their lunch order. Instead of the sandwich shop across the Plass or anywhere else in walking distance, Ianto had gone all the way out to the little Persian place Owen swore by. It didn't even do takeaway normally, but Ianto had worked his quiet magic and, from what the rest of the team deduced from the one side of the phone call they could hear, had not only secured a lunch order but had been invited to the chef's upcoming wedding.

Gwen leapt at the chance to help Ianto with the bags, mostly to get away from Owen. “Ta, love,” she said, and caught a whiff from the first bag she grabbed. Her eyes rolled back. “God, that smells divine.”

“Sorry I'm a bit late,” Ianto said, hefting another bag into Owen's greedy hands. “Parvaneh wouldn't let me leave without tea and a chat. Oh, there's a tray of gaz on the house as well.”

“Pistachio?” Tosh called.

“Yep.”

“Hide it before Jack turns up!”

The board room table was soon a mess of plates and utensils, air filled with comfortable chatter. Within minutes Ianto was already studiously frowning at condensation rings under drinks, no matter how many napkins he blatantly offered, not to mention at the scattered grains of rice from Owen's overenthusiastic talking with his hands while his hands happened to be occupied with polow.

Kebabs sorted, lavash demolished, and gaz hopefully safe from Jack's insatiable sweet tooth for the time being, Ianto finally broke into the conversation to ask, “Anything happen while I was out?”

His tone was dry – the most exciting thing to happen all week had been a bit of Rift debris smashing through the windsheild of a local TV news personality's BMW. The man had been on a tirade against brick-throwing hooligans ever since. Jack had immediately identified the debris as a plant pot, and the whole team had wordlessly bemoaned that the car's owner hadn't been inside it at the time.

Tosh had gotten some small entertainment out of doing a particle analysis on the ceramic of the pot – it turned out to be largely made of Martian red clay. Jack had hazarded its time of origin as about twelve hundred years in the future. It now sat on Gwen's desk with a freshly transplanted aglaonema from the greenhouse.

So Ianto wasn't anticipating Gwen choking on her mouthful of food or Owen bursting into laughter. He automatically sought solidarity from Tosh, who met his glance and rolled her eyes faintly. “Children,” said Tosh.

“No, come on,” said Owen, leaning back in his chair, plate to his chest. “Let's have it. Ianto -”

Gwen raised her fork threateningly. “Owen Harper, the next words out of your mouth -”

Tosh put her head in her hand and sighed.

“Oh,” said Ianto, looking supremely done with his team's shit. “This is a Jack thing.” He bit into a piece of gaz.

“It's a fair question!” Owen cried at Gwen, who was pelting him with bits of dried cherry from her polow.

“What is it this time?” Ianto asked, dry as a desert. “We've covered whether he has any strange birthmarks, whether he snores, does he sleep naked – of course he does, I don't know why anyone would even ask -”

“Listen, I'm just sick of hearing – _quit_ it, Gwen – that he's so _creative_ and _original_ because that's bloody meaningless, a shag's a shag, and leave off my lunch, copper!” Gwen had pulled his food away as if his punishment for being childish was to be sent to bed with no supper.

“I'm not sure what the question is,” Ianto said, eyeing the Year 1 cafeteria antics with mounting concern for the amount of cleanup that would be called for.

“It's just,” sighed Tosh, tossing her head and looking at Ianto apologetically, “the way people who've been involved with Jack talk about him like he's so uniquely, I don't know. Adept? And it's no place of any of ours to even bring it up.” She glared at Owen down the table.

“Sorry, Ianto,” said Gwen, doe-eyed with contrition.

“So, at the bottom of all this qualifying, you're just asking if Jack's good in bed,” Ianto said, crossing his arms. “I'm amazed it took you this long to ask this directly, to be honest.”

_“No,”_ Owen said, pointing. “I wanted to know why every man, woman and poodle seems to sing his praises across the length and breadth of the known universe. Just being good in bed doesn't qualify for that sort of PR.”

Ianto shrugged. He seemed to be giving the question some real thought. “Dunno,” he said at length. “Couldn't speak for the known universe. It's just – he's Jack, isn't he?”

No amount of furrowed brows and fishing for half-hearted objections from the others could ultimately top the simple fact of Jack Harkness existing. The team finished their lunch in a much more subdued mood, shifting the conversation to safer topics like weevils and Martian plant pots. The truth was, no individual theory could explain the heady cocktail of charisma, tragedy, pheromones, creativity, and enthusiasm that made up the phenomenon that was Jack. Privately, Ianto had to concede that the sex, while astonishingly, mind-meltingly good, was ultimately not the defining characteristic of what made Jack... whatever he was to Ianto. A refuge for Ianto's soul. A constant. Infinity cooped up in one body. Home.

Like overfeeding Abaddon with his life energy, Jack was simply himself _so much._ What it imparted to those he loved was a peculiar sense that they were all growing, too. Outgrowing their skins, shining through their own cracks, becoming a little _more_ all the time. And that quality was hardly limited to the act of sex. Ianto could see that understanding settling over Tosh, Owen and Gwen as they wrapped up the meal in companionable silence.

Owen made a halfhearted attempt to swipe up some of his spilled rice, but Ianto tsked at him and he stopped. Hands in his pockets, Owen gave an awkward shrug. “Sorry to push it, mate.”

Ianto could only laugh. Owen looked perturbed at the reaction, but Ianto just grinned and started clearing up. “I don't care,” Ianto said, and was mildly astonished to find that it was true.

Owen snorted. His usual degree of impish calculation returned to his gaze. “Right. I'll be sure to get back to you with any further scientific inquiries, then.”

Ianto rolled his eyes and Owen thankfully took it for the affable dismissal that it was.

Over an hour later, Jack swept into the Hub from whatever rooftop he'd been sunning on, his stride easy, his face crooked into a subtle smile. Obviously it hadn't been one of his brooding trips. He sniffed the air as he bounded up the steps towards his office, and, leaning over the railing, called out, “What smells good?”

“If you're a good boy Ianto might've kept you a kebab,” Gwen said, back in her magazine once again, police scanner crackling away on her desk with nothing but the odd traffic collision to report.

Jack came clanging back down the stairs and was just wandering towards the kitchen when Ianto emerged with a mug in one hand, opposite thumb in his mouth to lick away sugar traces. He met Jack's raised eyebrow with a slight air of guilt. “You missed lunch,” Ianto said, clutching his coffee like a shield. “Yours is keeping warm in the -”

With a smirk, Jack grabbed Ianto's hand before it could retreat to his pocket and licked Ianto's fingertips. He made a contemplative face and said, “Nougat. Rose?”

Ianto sighed. “And pistachio.”

“Ianto, no!” Tosh yelled from her workstation.

“You went to Rumi's,” Jack said slyly. “When I was out.”

“Well maybe if you wouldn't eat all the sweets before the rest of have a chance to breathe,” Ianto said.

Jack laughed. And Ianto, in an unprecented move in the open, in the workplace, kissed him.

Behind closed doors, the exchange between them was usually quite equal. Ianto initiated as often as he relinquished control, and if either of them weren't interested in that moment, the other always respected it. But in front of the team, only Jack had ever swept in to kiss Ianto. Passionately once or twice, in fraught moments, but even the most casual intimacies came from Jack's inability to keep his hands to himself – a hand on Ianto's shoulder or lower back, fingers mussing Ianto's hair, a swift kiss to the corner of Ianto's mouth in thanks after the first sip of morning coffee.

Ianto kissed Jack quick but sincere, letting Jack taste the gaz that still lingered, sweet and sticky, on his lips. Jack made a small noise of surprise and pleasure against Ianto's mouth, wrapping his fingers around Ianto's free wrist and gripping in promise.

“Get a room!” Owen shouted, and Ianto broke away and stepped back just in time to see a crumpled ball of paper sail in their direction and miss wildly. Sighing, he walked over and picked it up, knowing full well that Jack was watching him bend over.

More puffed-up and pleased with himself than ever, Jack strode away to the kitchen and later retreated to hiding in his office to eat. To no one's surprise, the rest of the gaz disappeared with him. But later, as Ianto brought Tosh an afternoon dose of caffiene, he murmured for her ears only, “There's another tray in the mini-fridge in the tourist office. Take it with when you go home.”

Tosh grinned up at him, eyes sparkling.

Ianto gathered up the latest weevil autopsy report and the official brief on the plant pot incident, and disappeared up the stairs into Jack's office. It took all of five minutes for Owen to break the silence.

“Who d'you reckon tops, then?”

Gwen huffed out a long groan and stood up. “Right, I'm off home.”

“It's three,” Tosh pointed out.

“Yeah, well.” Gwen picked up her coat and cleared her throat. “I don't think Jack's mind is going to be on work for the next couple hours, either. Ring if the rift blows up.”

“Set up the remote rift monitor, Tosh,” said Owen. “Let us all off the hook for an evening.”

Tosh sighed but couldn't argue. She had errands she'd needed to run for a couple of days, and it looked like the rift truly was as dormant as it ever got. She set up the monitoring protocols, left a message for Jack that they'd all gone home early, grabbed her bag, and hurried to catch up with the other two.

In the tourist office, Tosh beelined for the small drinks fridge and emerged with the secret extra order of gaz, grinning. Owen did an exaggerated double take.

“Teacher's pet's pet,” he accused.

“For the record,” said Tosh, brushing her hair back loftily, “they definitely switch.”

Gwen snorted with laughter she tried to hide behind her fist, and together the three of them walked out into the drizzly afternoon, arguing and laughing.

-

“They gone?”

“Yep.”

“I think this workday is officially over. Want me to take you out tonight?”

“Leave off the last two words. Sign this first.”

The paperwork, flimsy an excuse as it always was, still had to get done. The autopsy report was only slightly crumpled from Ianto's flail for purchase after Jack had pushed him back against the desk the moment he'd walked into the office. Jack grinned against Ianto's mouth, fished a pen out of his pocket, and pushed Ianto round by the shoulder until Ianto was facing the desk and Jack was pressed up against his back. Ianto held his breath while Jack smoothed down the jacket over Ianto's shoulders, held the papers up against him, and signed.

“Gonna need to use you as a desk more often,” Jack murmured.

“Um,” Ianto said, and cursed how weak his voice sounded.

“Get that stopwatch out, see how long you can keep still with my stuff laid out over your back – pens and, you know, that little tray of paperclips -”

“Um,” Ianto said a bit more firmly. “I think we're veering into _your_ office fetish now.”

Jack spun him back around and shrugged, looking thoroughly entertained. “You like my office fetish.”

Ianto snorted but let Jack lean in and kiss him soundly, deeply, until Ianto was breathless and mostly sitting on the desk top with Jack between his thighs, hands stroking Ianto's lower back through his silk blend waistcoat, molding their bodies together. No, he didn't want to go anywhere tonight. Jack didn't feel mythical – he felt incredibly, impossibly real, always so intensely rooted in the moment that it was easy to feel that being near him was like being in the eye of some great storm that spun the universe around a Jack-shaped axis. And Ianto supposed that was what really stuck with people after Hurricane Jack took apart their lives. It was easier to cite his sexuality than explain the complete truth.

“Bed,” Ianto gasped into Jack's mouth, and Jack laughed, and the universe turned.


End file.
